


Entanglement

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Community: holmestice, Confessions, Fluff, Gen, Holidays, Humor, M/M, Metaphors, Mind Palace, Physics, Pining, Sickfic, Texting, string theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 11:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Christmas Eve, snow covers London, John visits Harry, and Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson untangle some knots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entanglement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holyfant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/gifts).



> Love and hugs to shinysherlock for the beta, holyfant for the inspiring prompts, and the Holmestice mods for their hard work. Thank you all. <3
> 
> 12/7/2014: minor edits. Am never satisfied, I guess.... :)

Christmas Eve, and Baker Street lies white and abandoned as London freezes and powder sticks to pavement. John’s in Oxshott with his sister, dutiful brother that he is, and Sherlock, for the first time since his return from the dead, is spending Christmas without John.

Sherlock sits on the sofa next to Mrs Hudson, detangling strands of fairy lights--putting them up late this year; it's been case upon case for weeks--and _not_ coming down with the winter cold John informs him has been laying London low. He reaches for the mess of cords on the coffee table; the tangled strands evoke the vibrating strings he’s made of--his most fundamental units, indivisible and somehow snarled in ways that keep him from telling John that John is--John is--.

John says “partner", easily. Means it maybe in the business sense. Sherlock could ask, but even imagined, the words tie themselves silent on his tongue.

“I told you not to throw them in the box this way, dear,” Mrs Hudson says, teasing a bulb through a knot. “Seems we go through this every year.”

Sherlock knows that they do, in fact, go through this every year: he puts the fairy lights away poorly after every Christmas to guarantee that he and Mrs Hudson will sit together and fix them the following winter. He enjoys the tradition of solving a puzzle while Mrs Hudson gives him her undivided attention; Mrs Hudson puts on Christmas carols to soothe her nerves while she and Sherlock work, which allows him to listen to songs with which he has sentimental associations without having to admit to said sentimental associations.

“Sherlock, are you sure you’re all right? Your eyes are glassy, and your colour’s off.”

“Perfectly fine, Mrs Hudson, I assure you.” Sherlock lifts a strand they’ve managed to separate from the mess and lays it on the floor. “Will your sister still be joining us tonight?”

“No, not with the snow, though I’m surprised she let it stop her. Susan’s as stubborn as an ox. She didn’t let the Big Freeze keep her from getting around back in ’62, but then, I suppose we’re none of us as young as we were.”

“You sound like John. Just the other day, he told me that I should ‘consider slowing down’. Said I don’t recover as quickly anymore. Can you imagine?”

Mrs Hudson frowns. “Sherlock, listen to yourself. You’re absolutely stuffed up. I’m going to bring you some tea, young man, and you’re going to drink it.”

“I’m forty-seven,” Sherlock protests, freeing another strand from the knot.

“Don’t argue with me, and you shouldn’t argue with John, either. You keep at those lights.”

Sherlock, smiling, obeys. His mobile dings in his dressing gown pocket: a message from John.

_Harry’s dragging me to church._

His skin feeling far too hot for the chilly room, Sherlock types:

 _You’ve gone to church more often since Mary died. Sure she would agree with me that you are wasting your time.--SH_ (Will remind John that he misses Mary: will divert John’s attention from Sherlock: is markedly out of key with what Sherlock understands to be "the Christmas spirit": not good: delete.)

 _I prayed. When I was dead. Haven’t been to church since I was a child.--SH_ (Will remind John of That Time: will remind John that he and Sherlock do not agree on theological matters: will suggest to John that perhaps Sherlock is not so indifferent to said matters as John supposes or Sherlock would like: not good: delete.)

 _Thought one was meant to spend Christmas with one’s loved ones. Holiday celebrations pointless without you. Come home.--SH_ (Will sound needy: will require further explanation: will force Sherlock to lie to John [not allowed] or to tell John the truth [terrifying]: not good: delete.)

 _I cannot understand why some people choose to believe that some deity, somewhere, is engineering their suffering.--SH_  (True: pithy: room to elaborate in ways that will make John laugh: perfect: send.)

There’s clinking in the kitchen. Cabinet doors open and close; there are footsteps on the lino.

_Out of love for them, no less.--SH_

_And we celebrate that this sadist reproduced?--SH_

_Frankly alarming, from a psychological perspective.--SH_

Sherlock drums his fingers on the arm of the sofa, picturing John’s hunt-and-peck typing: three, two, one....

_Sherlock. Stop it. The priest is murdering me with her eyes._

“Sherlock,” Mrs Hudson calls as Sherlock grins, pleased that he has caused John to smile, to lick his thin lips, to make his _oh, Sherlock_ expression, which gives Sherlock hope that John may feel as entangled with him as he feels with John, “you haven’t any tea in. I’ll bring you some up, but I’m reporting you to the Queen.”

Sherlock smirks. “No need, Mrs Hudson. I’m sure Mycroft already knows.”

“Oh, shame on you, being rude on Christmas.” Sherlock grimaces, and Mrs Hudson adds, “Is Mycroft joining us tonight? Not that he ever does, but I always invite him--well, I leave a message with his assistant, anyway--but I never did hear back this year.”

“No. Mycroft doesn’t _do_ holidays, or so he insists.”

“Well. Shame on him, too, then.” Mrs Hudson walks into the living room and stops short. “Sherlock Holmes, look at yourself. I swear you’re falling apart by the minute.” She holds the back of her hand against Sherlock's forehead. “Oh, I don’t like that at all. Leave it to you to run a fever on the coldest day of the year. Contrary man.”

Sherlock listens to her make her careful way down the seventeen steps. Once he hears that she’s made it safely, he picks up his mobile:

_Not my fault that you don’t know how to turn off text notifications.--SH_

_SHERLOCK._

John’s typing all in capital letters: clearly frustrated: likely with Harry, possibly with church, doesn’t feel he can lash out at either: yells at Sherlock for continuing to text: doesn’t really want him to stop: wouldn’t answer, were that the case. Fine with Sherlock, who loves to be the center of John’s attention, all-caps or otherwise.

_Mrs Hudson brought us up a plate of Christmas baking just after you left.--SH_

_Lovely. Leave me a snowman biscuit for once, would you?_

Ha, perfect: John walked into it.

_I’ll consider it.--SH_

_You’ve already eaten them all, haven’t you?_

Sherlock taps his toes against the rug.

_You shouldn’t be texting in church.--SH_

_Of course you ate them. Again._

_You are a terrible human being._

Which reminds Sherlock of other words (which Sherlock wasn’t meant to hear--more than a bit not good, or so John’s fist told him when he returned), and his chest hurts because when those words were said, he and John were--they were so alone, and Sherlock meant that to end when he returned--yet here he and John are, apart on Christmas.

_Thought I was the most human human being, or something equally ludicrous.--SH_

_Should have known death wouldn’t stop you listening in on me. Bastard._

John’s not too upset: why not? Sherlock took the kindness John hadn’t intended him to hear and belittled it: surely that should have driven John away?

_I’m turning off my phone._

Sherlock grins.

_Bet you don’t know how.--SH_

Mrs Hudson, carrying a full tea tray, pushes the door open with her hip. “Here, now, here’s that cuppa. I brought you up some cough sweets, too.”

Sherlock puts down his mobile (which feels uncomfortably like letting go of John--irrational--delete), reaches for the teapot, and pours for Mrs Hudson, then for himself. Breathes in tannins. Adds sugar.

Mrs Hudson stirs milk into her cup. “Do you think you’ll feel up to joining us tonight?”

“Mrs Hudson, I attended my own funeral.” Sherlock tastes his tea: just right. “I don’t intend to be kept from Christmas Eve dinner.”

“Take some paracetamol, at least. It’s right there on the tray.”

Sherlock sighs. “If you insist.”

“Sherlock….” Mrs Hudson sits beside him and rests her hands in her lap. “Since it’s just ourselves here--promise me you’ll tell him, when you’re feeling a bit better. I’m sure he doesn’t know.”

Sherlock stares straight ahead and sips at his tea: too hot, though he won’t let that stop him from drinking it. He shakes some paracetamol from the bottle, palms it, and swallows it dry. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, love,” Mrs Hudson says sadly, fondly, patting him on the leg, “of course you do. Now you go to bed, and I’ll get these lights and the rest of the decorations sorted. You need to rest, young man.”

Sherlock’s knees crack as he stands. He drinks his still-too-hot tea in a single go and shuffles into his bedroom; the heater rumbles from the storey below. His dressing gown wrapped tightly around him, he feels himself a dimension at once part of its universe and isolated, infinitely inaccessible.

He slides under his covers and shivers: even though his skin feels hot, he can’t seem to get warm. He palms his mobile and types, _Come home._

Deletes it.

Types, _I miss you._

Deletes it.

He blinks, puts his mobile on his bedside table, and, settling his head against his pillow, closes his eyes.

He won’t sleep, but in his mind palace, in a small room that smells of evergreen and nutmeg, he finds a stack of wrapped boxes shining: the Christmases he’s saved. 

He stands in a Florida condo overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, his skin peeling, the salt air blowing through the open window. The neon Santa on the wall is too bright, and his client tells him, “You’re a smart lad, Sherlock, but you’re the loneliest thing. Look at you, not with your family, even at Christmas. Look me up in London, dear, or I’ll worry about you.” He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing at all.

He walks through London and it’s grey, grey. He spends money that isn’t his on drugs he isn’t supposed to have, and when he does call Mrs Hudson, he’s strung out on Montague Street, caught in his sheets, and he’s vibrating, entangled, impossible to reach, but Mrs Hudson finds him and makes him drink an entire pot of herbal tea and tells him, “This is no way to spend a Christmas, Sherlock. We need to get you out of here, and I’ve got just the place for you--it’s on Baker Street. We’ll get you back on your feet, and you’ll come have a look.”

He bolts through holiday-hushed streets with John.

He wears the ridiculous antlers on the ridiculous headband because they make John smile and there is nothing Sherlock would rather see, no _one_ Sherlock would rather see, than John, who to Sherlock’s silent delight introduces Sherlock to Harry as John’s “partner”.

He stands by the fireplace and plays violin for John because only strings can tell him that he is a dimension without which Sherlock’s would collapse, and Sherlock wants to hold him close, kiss him spinning, press his lips to John’s every wrinkle scar fold roll because their bodies’ resonant patterns amplify one another and there is nothing more precious to Sherlock, _nothing,_ than the string that is John, but Sherlock doesn’t tell him, and John isn’t Sherlock, so John sees, but he doesn’t observe, and he doesn’t know, doesn’t know--.

Sherlock gasps awake in a pool of his own sweat, shivering, his mobile abuzz. He reaches for it, misses, squints at the screen:

_Just out of church. Priest didn’t murder me after all. It’s a Christmas miracle._

_Traffic’s a complete cock-up. Not sure how long it’ll take me to get home._

_Creeping along. Think Harry could melt the snow with her road rage alone._

_She’s been sober ten years next month. Hard to believe it’s been so long._

_God, I’m old._

_Found a cab, going to the station._

_Might be a while. Trains barely running._

_On the Tube now._

_I’m still hoping you were lying about the snowman biscuits._

_You fell asleep, didn’t you?_

_Told you you had that cold._

_You’re resting til New Year’s at least. Doctor’s orders._

_See you soon._

Sherlock steps out of his bedroom and into--not the room he left, at all: it’s dark outside, and the room glows with fairy lights and candles. The air smells of smoke and pine needles and mulled wine. The fire crackles. Garlands twine around the lamps and over the furniture.

 _An enchanted forest,_ Sherlock thinks, then deletes: childish. He takes slow steps into the kitchen, where John is at the sink with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his jacket over the back of a chair. He’s washing the last of the china while the kettle heats.

“Saved you a Christmas cracker,” John says, half-smiling over his shoulder at Sherlock and setting the sauce boat in the dish rack. He dries his hands on a towel, and Sherlock picks up the cracker from the table and pulls the ends apart with a  _pop._ “Harry always said the sound was Christmas fairies flying out.” _  
_

"Mmm, no. Silver fulminate. Noisy and unstable. Welcome home.”

“Reminds me of someone I know,” John says, eyes crinkled at the corners, “and thanks. Glad to be back.”

Sherlock aches to trace those lines beneath his fingertips, to touch the thinning skin around John’s eyes, but--“What was in yours?” Sherlock says, spreading the cracker’s contents on the table.

“A crown, a sweet--saved it for you, it’s on the counter--and a miniature Rubik’s cube.” The electric kettle boils; John pours two cups of tea and adds milk to one and honey to the other.

Sherlock squeezes his toy. It wheezes. “I have some sort of tuberculotic rubber duck. Trade you.”

“By ‘trade you’, I assume you mean, ‘I’m going to take your Rubik’s cube, solve it, take it apart, leave the pieces on the floor, and laugh when you step on them tomorrow morning,’” John says as he stirs the tea and removes the bags.

“John, you wound me.” Sherlock takes the Rubik’s cube from the counter and tucks it into the pocket of his dressing gown, though he spoils the effect with a coughing fit.

“Right. You’re for bed. Go on, take your tea, and I don’t want to hear you prowling about down here until it’s properly morning.”

“No,” Sherlock says, louder than he means to, and John’s eyebrows rise. “What I mean is, I haven’t played.” _For you_ , he manages to not say.

“‘Played’? Oh, your violin.” John shakes his head between sips of tea. “Sherlock, you know I enjoy it, but you play often enough. It can wait ’til you’re feeling better. You sound horrible, and you look exhausted.”

Sherlock _is_ exhausted, loath though he is to admit it. He means to leave the kitchen, but he stands in front of John, takes in every detail of John’s face, and John looks back, sees--something, Sherlock doesn’t know what-- _frustrating_ \--but John’s expression shifts, turns… sad? pensive? concerned?

John puts down his tea, puts out his arms, and says, “Hey.”

Sherlock lets John hug him. A best friend’s hug. Bracing. Chaste.

Not at all what Sherlock wants.

Sherlock closes his eyes and rests his chin on John’s head. “Please come with me,” he murmurs, because he’s tired, so tired, of not asking.

John releases him and steps back. Wary. “To bed?”

Sherlock could explain. Instead: “Yes.”

John nods. Sips his tea. Sets it down. “Why?”

Sherlock swallows. “Because I want you to.”

“Is that the fever talking, or…?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “The want precedes the fever.”

“I didn’t think you were--you’ve never seemed--.” John blinks. “You didn’t say.”

Sherlock shivers, and John’s face shifts again; John, carrying their mugs, leads them through the living room to Sherlock’s bedroom and sets their tea on the bedside table.

“You call me your friend,” John says, stripping down to his undershirt and pants as Sherlock settles under the covers. “Never your partner, even though that’s what I call you. Have done for years. You, of all people, must have noticed.”

John gets into bed and lies on his side, looking at Sherlock but not touching him (wrong), and Sherlock, scrambling for a way to draw John near, says, “Strings.”

John frowns. “Sorry?”

“String theory. When physicists realised that the renormalizable field theory didn’t”--John squints-- _not good_ \--“that particle physics didn’t account for the way that gravity works, physicists developed string theory. String theo _ries_. Six possible explanations of how strings work, of whether fermions are chiral or--.”

“‘Chiral’? Sherlock, you know I don’t--.”

“Look,” Sherlock insists, rolling onto his side and grabbing John by the shoulder, “these theories about the fundamental nature of the universe, they appeared different, do you see? But it turned out that mathematically speaking, pairs of them were the same. They were, they were pairs of theories, describing the same reality, using different mathematical language.”

John nods. His hair whispers against the pillowcase. He says nothing. Sherlock knows he’s failed, lets go of John’s shoulder, is about to retreat to the living room when John says, “So we’re--in this analogy, we, you and me, are theories. A pair of them. That try to explain our--our friendship, or partnership, or--whatever this is. And we don’t explain it the same way, but that’s all right, because actually, we’re saying the same thing.”

A tightness eases in Sherlock’s chest. “Not just theories, John.” He rests one hand on the side of John’s face. Traces the soft skin, the creases that he’s watched form. “Strings. Because we resonate together.”

“Sherlock, that is….” John turns his head to kiss Sherlock’s palm; Sherlock slides his hand down to John’s bicep. “That is brilliant. _You_ are brilliant.”

 _Don’t smile don’t smile don’t_ \--Sherlock beams. “Do you think?”

“Bloody fantastic. How did you come up with that?”

“I was thinking. While you were in Oxshott. I….” Sherlock, to his astonishment and mortification, feels his eyes fill with tears. “I just wanted you to come home.”

John’s hand is cool on Sherlock’s face, and his thumb is gentle as it brushes away the drops on Sherlock’s cheeks. “I’ll always come home to you. Always, Sherlock.”

John’s hand slides into Sherlock’s hair, and John’s face moves closer, closer. Sherlock closes his eyes. Lets John’s lips part his. Tastes tea, and powdered sugar, and _John_.

Sherlock smiles. “You found the snowman biscuits.”

“Sitting on the plate, right where you left them,” John agrees, nudging Sherlock’s shoulder-- _roll over_ \--and, once Sherlock settles on his other side so his back is to John, fitting his body along Sherlock’s.

“Merry Christmas, John.” Sherlock reaches for John’s hand. Brings it to his lips (slowly, in case it isn’t allowed, but John doesn’t object) and kisses each knuckle.

John moves their hands to Sherlock’s chest and laces their fingers together. “Merry Christmas. We’ll talk when you’re better, all right? Agree on what we’re going to call… whatever this is. On _what_ it is, even. And no string theory, Sherlock. I won’t have any idea what you’re on about.”

“Don’t be tedious.” Sherlock blinks against his fatigue. “Of course you will.”

Sherlock watches the snow fall beyond his bedroom window, John’s breath warm and rhythmic behind him.


End file.
